Creating Valuable Trade Show Videos 

How often have you been at a trade show, corporate event, or conference and think “this is a perfect moment to demonstrate our company culture, product and vision?”  

The entire team is together.  Excitement is running high…perhaps due to a successful product rollout, a new division launch, or simply because team is face-to-face for the first time in months. Spirits are high, the team has swagger, and the conversation is authentically coming from the heart. People are fully engaged with the company and the brand. Advocacy will never be greater! It’s a perfect time to visually capture the passion of a team, new products or the way customers feel about your business.  

Imagine having this insight weeks in advance of an event––and planning to capture this valuable interaction and engagement. Over the course of a three-day event, one could populate a comprehensive video asset library of personal interviews, joint conversations, show floor footage, and B-roll. Useful video and still photography can be shared both internally and as marketing/promotional collateral.  

This is precisely what BASF’s 3D-Printing division achieved at the 2017 Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) Conference and trade show in Chicago, IL.  

 

BASF used this year’s AMUG conference as a “launch party” for their 3D-Printing division; an innovative, start-up team focused on advancing the company’s new 3D-printing material.  BASF publicly announced their entry into the additive manufacturing sector as a major 3D-printing material supplier––introducing the industry to new, proprietary additive manufacturing material composites.

BASF understood the magnitude of the AMUG launch and the impact their name would have in the sector.  They recognized that the 2017 AMUG conference was less a pure trade show and more a corporate experiential event that needed to be visually documented; and they needed a strong archivist to produce the content.

BASF engaged StoryTrack to strategically capture the importance of the launch in a visual narrative, enhanced by team member and partner stories––to build an extensive video asset library that could be used for marketing, PR, and promotional content.

Over the course of 2 ½ days, the StoryTrack team fully documented BASF’s 3D-Printing division conference presence. Through on-site interviews they captured the energy, passion, and commitment of engineering and product team members, customers, and partners. Full BASF technical presentations were recorded. BASF trade show booth customer interactions, material demonstrations/examples, and show traffic B-roll were filmed.  

Capturing trade show video of the 3D-Printing division launch, StoryTrack quickly and efficiently populated an extensive video and still photography asset library that enabled the creation of unique content messaging for specific social and digital channels.

The StoryTrack team came in with a scripted plan, orchestrated the entire video production, captured twenty one (21) compelling stories from the BASF team, and produced beautiful video and still footage.  From the trade show video, StoryTrack created comprehensive visual media portfolio:

  • Two unique AMUG thank-you videos – one distributed internally to the BASF team and one for show attendees.
  • An announcement video for the upcoming Materialize show where BASF would be launched in Europe.
  • An extensive interview reel for future PR and collateral use.
  • Videos detailing BASF’s partnership with major 3D-printing equipment manufacturers.
  • Video, GIF, and still images loaded to the BASF 3D-Printing division website, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn social sites.

 

This is a terrific example of how–with strategic planning and solid direction–companies can use trade show video to capture the emotion and passion of the team, customers, and partners at an impactful corporate event. Take advantage of having key stakeholders together in a positive team setting. Let their authenticity come through in the stories they tell. Film them to capture the emotion. Share the content in the appropriate format for the given online of social channel.  And, finally, archive the content for easy future access and repurposed use.

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Interested in learning more about how trade show video can positively impact your communication, presentation, or new product marketing? Give us a call or send us an email. We’d love to hear from you.

About the Author

Lori Dowd

Lori Dowd is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of StoryTrack Studio. For over 20 years, she has directed and produced programming for a range of corporate, non-profit, online and broadcast partner/client.